Suspend registrations for owners ignoring airbag call

2 May 2019

Car dealerships across Australia have conducted more than 2.1 million Takata airbag rectifications – for free – but continue to remain under great pressure and scrutiny to do more.

Their efforts, however, have been curtailed by motorists who – despite the best efforts of the vehicle manufacturers and their dealer networks to replace identified faulty airbags – have ignored continued direct approaches and wide-ranging marketing campaigns.

The request of motorists is simple: make an appointment at a local dealership, whose service department will assess the vehicle and replace all necessary parts to ensure the vehicle’s airbag system is operational and safe.

There is absolutely no cost to the vehicle owner. Despite this, some motorists continue to ignore the call.

According to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), close to 750,000 vehicles – or 25 percent of the vehicles identified as potentially having faulty Takata airbags – remain registered and are presumably being driven on public roads.

Of those, around 12,000 vehicles have been identified as “critically requiring repair”, including over 8,800 vehicles containing the most dangerous type of ‘alpha’ airbag.

Now VACC – the peak body representing dealers through its Victorian Automobile Dealers Association – is calling on VicRoads to suspend the registrations of vehicles fitted with alpha airbags whose owners are not playing their part in bringing this situation to a satisfactory close.

“(Takata’s) alpha airbag can have up to a 50 percent chance of mis-deployment if triggered in an incident,” says the ACCC. 

Motorists who are unsure of their vehicle’s airbag status can check at: ismyairbagsafe.com.au

Read more about the ACCC’s Takata airbag work.